evening all and gordon, did my 1st night shoot after reviewing dslr tips in manuel mode rather than P. couple of observations. set aperture to f3.5 (using 18-180) set shutter to 1 sec. noticed "EV"??? not at zero so turned wheel to adjust shutter. ev at zero was 1.6 sec. took pic came out AWSOME. thanks all. spent 2 hours at beach in SAN DIEGO CAL. didnt have as good luck in ap mode. dont no why. read most people shoot in ap mode. anyway thanks to all.

In manual mode, most cameras still try and force their automatic opinions on you using the EV scale - when this moves off-centre in Manual, it's the camera saying it thinks your chosen exposure is going to be too bright or dark. If you then adjust your settings so the scale reads zero though, that's exactly what the camera would have chosen if you were in Auto! So, no point in using Manual!

The whole point of manual - for me anyway - is to override what the camera is suggesting. Almost all night shots require longer exposures than the camera is happy to suggest, so when I'm taking my night shots, the EV scale is normally flashing madly at +2 and beyond!

So my advice when shooting in manual at night is to ignore the EV scale and simply judge the result on-screen with your own eyes (and the histogram in playback), adjutsing the exposure as desired. It's trial and error, but you get a feeling for it before long.

If you do spot that your ideal exposures are coincidentally when the EV scale reads zero though, then your camera has a good idea of shooting your kind of night shots - so it could possibly be trusted in one of its auto modes in the future... for some of them anyway!

what a let down gordon i thought u might have missed something. i thought when adjusting shutter and ev showed zero that was the correct shot. camera is smarter than the newbe. now is guess i got to go back to be beach and try again. OH WELL. thanks for responding

Hi MRTZ, remember the camera doesn't always get it right. In Auto it will have a go for you, and in Manual, the EV scale will still tell you what it thinks - but as I said, Manual is just an easy way to override the settings and get the camera to do what YOU want.

But remember the final result is what matters. If you're happy with the shots you got, then there's no need to do them again! It might be that the ideal settings were the ones the camera would have suggested anyway - nothing wrong in that at all.

And also remember the EV scale is measuring the exposure as a combination of the shutter and aperture. You may have chosen a different combination to what the camera would have - the final amount of exposure may have been the same, but your combo may have still produced a preferrable result.

hey all and gordon, got my unscieftific results at night. used p and ap got frustrated with manuel so i didnt use it. also used 1.4 tele to check it out.
used 18 50 100 150 180 both in p mode and ap mode. in p mode pics were good came out a shade dark in ap mode pics came out a shade brighter so i says pics were very good. use tele at sunset and really surprised in p mode came out at f8 and pic was a little dark so cranked ev to +1 again pic looked pretty good. reason 4 bringing it up waz to add a little more zoom to my 18-180 which came out to 25-252. curious how it will do on a sunny day. again all thanks for all the great tips

i am using a 400d with an efs 17-85 lens shooting showjumping in an indoor arena at night...i can not use a flash and the lighting is bright sodium...the best settings i found so far are 1/125 , 5.6 , iso 1600...some shots come out focused and others not so depending on how close or fari am from the subject, that is not so much the problem as the noise...i have to move around the arena and hand hold the camera so the wb changes and i have thought i always need to stabilizer on...after reading through your tips and forums it seems i am doing most of the right things and have picked up some tips which i will be trying, but the right light is high on my priority...i will say that i have been doing one thing that may be wrong and that is holding the camera steady on the jump rather than following the horse as it approaches and jumps...any tips on settings would be greatly appreciated...

i am using a 400d with an efs 17-85 lens shooting showjumping in an indoor arena at night...i can not use a flash and the lighting is bright sodium...the best settings i found so far are 1/125 , 5.6 , iso 1600...some shots come out focused and others not so depending on how close or fari am from the subject, that is not so much the problem as the noise...i have to move around the arena and hand hold the camera so the wb changes and i have thought i always need to stabilizer on...after reading through your tips and forums it seems i am doing most of the right things and have picked up some tips which i will be trying, but the right light is high on my priority...i will say that i have been doing one thing that may be wrong and that is holding the camera steady on the jump rather than following the horse as it approaches and jumps...any tips on settings would be greatly appreciated...

Right, personally i would get myself a monopod, and turn the IS off (can cause shake, when on a tripod/monopod), then maybe use something like a 1250 ISO! The other settings sound good, although you may need to go back to using ISO 1600. Also to help you get sharp shots, i would enable 'Al Focus' mode on your camera, although you may well find, that a shutter speed of 1/125 is not really enough to freeze the action! Ideally for this sort of thing you would have somthing like a 85mm f/1.8, which would enable you to get sharper shots, because you would be able to get a higher shutter speed, by using a larger aperture, which would lead to frozen shots!
Hope this helped, let me know if you need some more help!

I'd also add that if you're finding the white balance is getting confused, just change it from Auto to a fixed mode, or a custom setting. Or shoot in RAW which will let you adjust the WB later, although this will reduce your continuosu shooting bursts.

As for sports photography, don't be disheartened by poor shots. Most of us have to take hundreds to get a handful of keepers. Just take lots to maximise your chances.

If the horse is always in the same position when you want the photo, you may also prefer to switch the lens to manual focus and focus on that point. Then there won't be any focusing errors - just timing errors to watch out for!

quick question. how come when i take a photos indoors i(n our house, low light) at night even when there are some lights, the pictures are either blurry or dark? I did not use flash. Setting was in AV and TV and P. Even when i use tripod? But when i use flash, everything is fine. I am using Canon rebel XS. What was I doing wrong? Please help me find a solution! Thanks!!

The simple answer is because it's too dark and your camera is being forced to use a shutter speed that's too slow to avoid blurring. And if you try and fix a faster shutter speed and there's not enough light foir the quicker exposure, then the photo will turn out dark.

The solution (if you don't want to use the flash) is to increase the light in the room or increase the camera's ISO sensitivity or use a lens which is brighter (ie has a smaller f-number).

Note that increasing the ISO will reduce the quality, but it's the cheapest option if you don't want to turn on all the lights, use a flash or buy a brighter lens!

As I am familiarizing myself with my Canon Rebel Xs, I noticed that the quality of photos taken from this DSLR was not sharp, crisp and clear and is almost the same qualities of photos taken from my old point & shoot Sony cybershot. Even with the shots taken with abundant light. I cant even tell which photo was taken from DSLR or regular point and shoot. I am using a kit lens that came with it( 18-55mm IS) Will I have the same problem if I replace my Canon XS with Nikon D90 with 18-105mm which I've read nothing but great reviews! Please advise. thanks a lot.